Thread: 6 Zone Manifold and Valve Box - Fimco Indexing Replacement

A union has two components. The male side has a rubber gasket and the female side is a "swivel". When a union is used with a manifold, the purpose is to allow removal of the manifold in order to do maintenance.

Which side of the union should be attached to the manifold - male or female?

I took after my boss and started using angle valves, particularly the Hunter PGVs, threaded of course and used 1" x 6" sch.80 nipples cut in half, each valve set with its own Texas Econo box. Id rather pull a single box to fix a valve then to pull a standard or worse yet a jumbo. Ive already had to rebuild two 4 valve manifolds because there was no room when a fitting cracked on a manifold.